Validation of the youth mood recurrences risk calculator in an adult sample with bipolar disorder

Jess G. Fiedorowicz, John A. Merranko, Satish Iyengar, Heather Hower, Mary Kay Gill, Shirley Yen, Tina R. Goldstein, Michael Strober, Danella Hafeman, Martin B. Keller, Benjamin I. Goldstein, Rasim S. Diler, Jeffrey I. Hunt, and Boris B. Birmaher

Calculating someone’s risk of having repeated manic or depressive episodes is an important part of treatment for Bipolar Disorder. This kind of information allows clinicians to develop tailored treatment plans for their patients. In this article, we explored whether a risk calculator to identify the likelihood of repeated manic or depressive episodes in youth and young adults could be used with adult patients.

We found that this risk calculator could be accurately used to foresee the risk of repeated depressive and manic episodes in adults living with bipolar disorder. Overall, it was better at predicting repeated episodes of depression than mania but we found that the risk calculator consistently underestimated risk by about 20%.

This study shows that a risk calculator can be used to accurately predict the risk of repeated depressive and manic episodes among adults living with bipolar disorder. This calculator can allow clinicians to identify groups of patients at higher risk of relapse and develop tailored treatment plans for them.